User manual CAMBRIDGE 650BD DATASHEET

[. . . ] I do occasionally hook in Back loudspeakers behind the listening position but they contribute little for music purposes. Most surroundsound music discs use the rear Surround loudspeakers for ambience, so do little work. A system like this does a fine job with pure audio discs like CD, SACD, etc, and also with Blu-ray and DVD music videos, as well as with movies, although it isn't purposed for massive explosions. [. . . ] Ominously, there is a `get you going` wizard and, in the tradition of wizards, pioneered by Microsoft, it was nonsensical, saying press `OK" when there was no OK to press (they mean Enter) and asking a user to choose a video output, with no instructions on how to do so. . . Blu-ray players are deadly slow to load and ­ more annoyingly ­ to unload. The 650BD is advertised as being `fast' ­ and it is, taking just 10 seconds to load a Blu-ray disc or CD, and 5 seconds to stop and eject either. With the long-to-load Java menu of John Meyer's `Where The Light Is' disc, it took 30 seconds to load, the same as the Philips BDP7500 I tested in our March 2010 issue. The player returns to where play last ended when switched on, or stopped, even after a disc is ejected and this takes some getting used to. The disc menu (Top menu) cannot be accessed from standstill, only when playing. Styling and finish were a little prosaic, but build quality was satisfactory. An excellent OSD appears on the TV when the remote control's Info button is pressed; you get data rate as well as coding scheme. With DTS HD Master Audio alone clocking up at 22Mbps, against 1. 2Mbps for CD there's no doubt that Blu-ray delivers a lot of music data. Slightly disappointing was a swishing noise that came from the player's mechanism when playing Bluray discs (but not CDs), just audible at times when 4m from the player, during soft classical music. The remote has a Draw Open function, which saves time, plus Power Off, and a Pure Audio function that switches off the display and video, which goes to Black Level (video silence), a very nice touch. The Marantz receiver has this too (Ken Ishiwata of Marantz hates video being on when audio is playing!). He's right; I often spot video breakthrough on the test bench and, in my system, switching all video and displays off does make for a smoother sound. Although the UK Region player will play most Blu-ray discs, which commonly lack regional coding, it will not play U. S. Unrelated to the zoning issue, it will play BDMV on Verbatim BD-Rs, I found, and Panasonic BD-REs, without a hiccup. VISION Picture quality passed all Silicon Optix, High Quality Video tests with ease, using both Blu-ray and DVD JUNE 2010 HI-FI WORLD www. hi-fiworld. co. uk 35 REVIEW tests, but most quality Blu-ray players manage this nowadays. There were no jaggies at all, no motion trailing or feathering, nor strobing. [. . . ] Whatever denser sound that was altogether I threw at the player, from 24/192 in more balanced and impressive. DTS, Dolby and PCM) explanation likely lies in lower jitter downward, it sounded full bodied, (I used Pure Audio to switch off jitter inducing video data). Lang Lang playing firm and clear, and set up stable VERDICT stereo images. [. . . ]